• Provisioning for Atlanta

    So the stars aligned (thanks to #THC) and I’m heading to Atlanta Friday morning.  I plan to hit a few events including the open practice with camera in tow, so check back here for the occasional update.   Initial provisioning:  Those are my 1993 Final Four tickets & I’m bringing them along as part of my 20 year therapy.   Starting to understand a little better what Jalen’s billboard really meant: Meanwhile, check out this timeless ad from MaraWatch: Follow MVictors on Twitter and stay tuned for updates from Atlanta.

  • Bacon on The Fab Five and Fishman’s Motion

    John Bacon’s Blog is required reading each week & he recently posted a few thoughts on the Fab Five documentary and the legacy of the controversial quintet.   Bacon broke the M-14 roll-over story a decade and a half ago (which sparked the investigation) and he ties that story to Fisher’s culpability: But I had to wonder: If the press could figure all this out in about 24 hours, why couldn’t Steve Fisher connect the dots right under his nose over several years?  They say he wasn’t part of the payola plan, and that’s probably true.  But you’d have to be willfully blind not to see its effects by 1996.  When Fisher was fired, he said they’d built an elite program, which was true, and they’d “done it the right way,” which wasn’t –  and by the time he was fired, he had to know it.  Bacon added this: To this day, Fisher has never accepted any responsibility for what happened on his watch, and Chris Webber has never apologized for taking over a quarter-million dollars from a booster. There’s always interesting commentary on his site & Bacon usually joins in to respond.  This time Bacs’ post elicited a comment Steve Fishman, the man who represented Webber in the federal criminal investigation: …there is one thing in the story that still…

  • Audio from the Fab Five Premiere

    A few audio clips from the Q&A in the aftermath of Jalen Rose’s Ann Arbor premiere of tonight’s ESPN Fab Five documentary.   More commentary, photos, etc. here. In order: 1.  Jalen On Chris Webber, why he hasn’t seen documentary and the time he still needs.  He says there’s no beef with the team or whatever.  Jalen just says that Chris isn’t ready to talk about it, says he’s still carrying a lot with him especially after to the two finals losses at the timeout.  Jalen hoping he finds some way to “release” all that weight. 2. Jalen on the trip to Europe right after the 1991 Finals and how he feels they were exploited. 3. Jalen on how ESPN feels about the Duke/Uncle Tom comments and his message to the Duke guys he works with.   He told ESPN, “Ya’ll better not fire me on Monday..” 4. Jalen on the content he wishes they could have fit into the film but didn’t make it.  Jalen says there are a lot of things, but he definitely wanted to point out how life was in the early 1990s (pre-internet, how people felt about the music.) 5. For fun, someone asking Jalen if he would have called the timeout if he were in the same situation as Webber.  Basically Jalen won’t answer but Jimmy…